Chapter 2 - THE NAME DOMINIC NEVER EXPECTED TO HEAR
“Was your father Dr. William Hart?”
Dominic Russo’s voice no longer sounded like the voice of a billionaire accustomed to commanding rooms.
It sounded like the voice of a man seeing a ghost.
I stepped backward from the ancient codex.
The senior attorney who had objected to my interruption rose from his chair. His name tag identified him as Adrian Vale, chief legal counsel for Russo Global.
“Mr. Russo, this girl may have overheard background information from the staff.”
“I didn’t,” I said.
Vale looked at me sharply.
“No one asked you.”
Dominic did not take his eyes off my face.
“What was your father’s name?”
I had survived three years by never answering that question honestly.
At school, I used my mother’s shortened maiden name. At The Sterling, my employment paperwork had been prepared by a manager who believed I was sixteen. The father section was blank.
“My name is Olivia Hart,” I said. “My father was William Hart.”
The Oxford paleographer removed his glasses.
“William Hart? The cryptographic historian?”
One of the museum curators whispered something in German.
They knew his academic name.
Dominic knew something else.
He came around the table.
“When did he die?”
“Three years ago.”
“How?”
“A hit-and-run.”
His face hardened.
“Where?”
“West Seventy-Eighth Street.”
“I was told he died in Prague.”
The answer made my skin turn cold.
“My father never went to Prague.”
Vale stepped between us.
“Dominic, we should verify her identity before continuing.”
Dominic’s gaze moved to the attorney’s hand.
A black onyx signet ring circled Vale’s smallest finger. Its face had been carved into the shape of a raven with spread wings.
I had seen that symbol before.
Not in the codex.
In my father’s final sketchbook.
He had drawn the raven repeatedly across the last page, each time crossing it out with violent black strokes.
Vale noticed me staring and closed his fist.
Dominic did too.
“Why are you looking at his ring?” he asked.
I turned back to the open book.
The first line had been ancient.
The marks beneath it were not.
They imitated the same angular script, but the pressure was different. Ancient iron-based ink had browned with age. These strokes were blacker, thinner, and written by a hand trained to disguise itself.
My father’s hand.
“This page contains two languages,” I said.
The Columbia professor leaned closer.
“The lower notation appears contemporaneous with the main text.”
“It isn’t. Someone used old phonetic values to write modern English.”
“Can you read it?”
I hesitated.
My father taught me never to translate an unknown cipher aloud until I understood who was listening.
Eight scholars.
Three lawyers.
Dominic Russo.
A man wearing the raven seal.
Every instinct told me to become invisible again.
Then I remembered our ruined apartment after my father died. Drawers emptied onto the floor. Books torn apart. The police calling it random burglary.
Someone had searched for this codex.
“The second line says, ‘Dominic, if this binding reaches you, I did not betray you.’”
Dominic gripped the edge of the table.
Vale went completely still.
I continued.
“‘The false ledger was placed by the man who carries the black-wing seal.’”
Every face turned toward Adrian Vale’s ring.
He laughed.
The sound was too quick.
“This is absurd. A child is improvising accusations from visual cues.”
I pointed to the glyphs.
“The first consonant takes the raven form. The next group spells false account. Then steward of law.”
The Oxford professor studied the notation.
“She may be correct.”
“May?” Vale snapped.
“The phonetic structure is consistent.”
Dominic looked at his attorney.
“Take off the ring.”
Vale’s smile disappeared.
“It belonged to my father.”
“Take it off.”
Vale slowly removed the signet.
Dominic held out his hand.
Instead of giving it to him, Vale slipped the ring into his pocket.
“That journal came from William’s private collection,” Dominic said. “You told me it was recovered from a Prague estate sale.”
“That is what the provenance documents show.”
“Olivia says her father never went to Prague.”
“She was eleven when he died. Children rarely know the full activities of their parents.”
“I knew him better than you did,” I said.
Vale’s eyes settled on me.
Something in them changed.
Not anger.
Recognition.
“You have your father’s unfortunate confidence.”
My breath stopped.
“You knew him.”
“I knew of him.”
“That isn’t what you said.”
Dominic’s security director moved toward Vale.
Then every light in the Emerald Room went out.
A woman screamed.
Glass shattered.
The codex disappeared from the glow of the emergency exit sign.
I dropped beneath the table.
Someone struck the mahogany above my head. A chair overturned. The rain against the windows became lost beneath shouting and footsteps.
A hand seized the back of my uniform.
I twisted and bit down hard.
The man cursed and released me.
Emergency lights flashed on.
Dominic stood beside the empty velvet pillow.
Adrian Vale was gone.
So was the codex.
One of the museum curators lay unconscious near the service door.
Dominic’s security team sealed the restaurant.
“No one leaves,” he ordered.
The Sterling’s manager rushed into the room.
“What happened?”
Dominic pointed toward me.
“Who hired this girl?”
The manager’s face changed.
“Olivia is one of our junior service assistants.”
“She is fourteen.”
Every scholar looked at me.
The manager began stammering.
I reached for my tray.
“I need to go.”
Dominic blocked my path.
“Someone just attacked you.”
“They were taking the book.”
“They grabbed you.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“You are fourteen years old.”
“I was fourteen before you found out.”
His expression shifted.
The words had struck somewhere beneath the billionaire armor.
“Where do you live?” he asked.
“That is none of your business.”
“It became my business when your father’s message named my chief counsel.”
“My father died because powerful men decided his work belonged to them. I’m not giving another one my address.”
Dominic lowered his voice.
“William was my partner.”
“You said you thought he betrayed you.”
“Evidence showed he transferred three hundred million dollars from our research division and disappeared with the codex.”
“He was a professor. He forgot to cash checks.”
“He also designed the most sophisticated defense encryption system in the world.”
I knew my father had consulted for technology companies. I had never known he held a partnership worth hundreds of millions.
Dominic continued.
“Three days after he disappeared, Vale produced records showing William sold the cipher architecture to a foreign buyer.”
“He wouldn’t.”
“I know that now.”
“You didn’t know then?”
His silence gave me the answer.
“You believed Vale.”
“Yes.”
“Did my father call you?”
“No.”
The certainty in his voice sounded rehearsed.
I remembered my father’s final night.
He had stood beside the apartment window holding his phone.
“If Dominic answers, everything will be all right,” he had said.
The following morning, he was dead.
“He called you,” I whispered.
Dominic’s face changed.
“I received no call.”
“Then someone made sure you didn’t.”
The unconscious curator stirred.
Security found a small puncture near his neck. An ambulance was called.
Restaurant footage showed Vale entering a service stairwell carrying the codex. Cameras below that floor went dark seconds later.
He had planned the escape.
Dominic turned to his security director.
“Find him.”
The manager attempted to pull me aside.
“Olivia, return to the kitchen. We’ll discuss your behavior tomorrow.”
Dominic looked at him.
“She won’t be working here tomorrow.”
Panic tightened my chest.
I needed the job.
My guardian’s medication, our rent, and school meals all depended on the cash I carried home.
“You cannot fire me,” I said.
“I am not your employer.”
“You just told him—”
“I told him a fourteen-year-old will not serve scotch to billionaires six nights a week.”
“You don’t control me.”
“No.”
The answer surprised both of us.
Dominic took out his phone.
“But I can ensure you are paid the ten million dollars I offered.”
“I translated one sentence.”
“That was the offer.”
“I don’t want your money.”
“Why?”
“Because money from powerful men always has conditions.”
Dominic looked toward the empty pillow.
“Then help me find your father’s codex, and you can write the conditions yourself.”
Before I could answer, security found something beneath Vale’s abandoned chair.
It was a folded restaurant napkin marked in my father’s cipher.
Only five words appeared.
THE GIRL REMEMBERS THE BEDTIME GATE.
May you like
Below them was my home address.
Vale had known exactly where I lived before I entered the room.
